Monday, November 21, 2011

The Harper government shouldn't spend money on foreign intelligence if it doesn't plan to heed it

At a time when Ottawa is instructing federal agencies to trim their budgets, the Conservative government is reportedly contemplating expanding the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's mandate to allow it to engage in intelligence collection abroad, a measure that would signify additional costs and whose returns are by no means certain.

At the heart of the problem lies Section 16 of the CSIS Act, which contains a clause — "within Canada" — that has long cast a shadow on the agency's ability to operate abroad. The government wants to do away with that constraint, arguing that new imperatives, such as international terrorism and Chinese espionage, require that CSIS have the same powers to spy on people abroad as it does within Canada.

Now, it is an ill-kept secret that, thanks to built-in flexibility in the mandate, CSIS is already conducting operations abroad, sometimes in some of the world's most dangerous places. What a revamped mandate would signify is that CSIS would be able to engage in more such activities, or feel less like a criminal when it does so. Arguably, such intensification in espionage abroad would imply additional costs related to training and deployment, among others, which goes counter to the government's budget cuts plan. What this would create, in fact, is justification for CSIS to ask for more money.

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About Me

Taipei-based Senior Non-Resident Fellow at China Policy Institute @ U Nott, associate researcher at CEFC, ed.-in-chief Thinking Taiwan. M.A. War Studies Royal Military College of Canada, International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance from CIHC, CX-77 (peacekeeping) Lester Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, B.A. English lit. Deputy news editor and a reporter at the Taipei Times 2006-2013. Intelligence officer for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (2003-2005). I have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, SCMP, National Interest, Lowy Interpreter, The Age, Jane’s Defence Weekly, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Jane’s Intelligence Weekly, Jane’s Navy International, Jane’s International Defence Review, the Ottawa Citizen, China Brief, CounterPunch, FrontLine Security, Strategic Vision, Asia Today International, The News Lens and The Diplomat. I was the 2012 recipient of the award for Outstanding Journalism from the Chen Wen-chen Memorial Foundation. I have appeared on BBC, CBC, CNN, VOA, RTI and Al-Jazeera. I use a Nikon D7100 camera. Follow me on Twitter @jmichaelcole1